Crysis 3 to support DirectX 11 on PC, Wii U version doubtful

Even the pickiest of graphics obsessives has to admit that Crysis 2looked pretty damn spiffy upon its release last March. But the PC version of the game didn't look as spiffy as it could until a DirectX 11 update last June. That added features like hardware tessellation, displacement mapping, and realistic shadows.

For Crysis 3, currently slated for the second quarter of 2013, Crytek is promising that players won't have to wait for such graphical touches since the game will support DirectX 11 features from launch. Crytek Director of Creative Development Rasmus Hojengaard told Joystiq the team is developing the technology for the new game using Crysis 2's DirectX 11 patch as a starting point.

"We'd be pretty stupid not to capitalize on the technology we did for that and utilizing that from the get-go," he said. Community Manager Tom Ebsworth later confirmed the announcement via Twitter.

Don't worry if your PC isn't quite up to DirectX 11 support, though: Hojengaard assured Joystiq that "even if you don't have the super powerhouse, nuclear power plant at home, you can still run the game and get a beautiful experience from it." That's a relief—what with the cost of depleted uranium these days, we're not sure we can afford to run our nuclear power plants as often as we'd like anyway.

Meanwhile, those hoping for Crysis 3 to be the first game in the series to run on a Nintendo system should probably brace for disappointment. Hojengaard told Destructoid there was a "fat chance" that the game would be coming to the Wii U, saying he "[doesn't] think it's going to be possible" on that system.

This is a bit of a turnaround for Crytek as the company previously promised CryEngine support for Nintendo's new system was "definitely going to happen." CEO Cervat Yerli even said last September that "the specs are very good" on the system, and that the developers were "very happy with their tests on the [Wii U] dev kits and they're excited about it."

The decision seems even odder since Crytek is planning Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Crysis 3 to launch alongside the PC edition. That means the Wii U should be able to handle the game's technical requirements even if it has the "current generation" power, as has been rumored. Curious...

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.